CascadeTL: Fnatic in Top 8 of tournament

Empire knock out Fnatic 1:4. Fnatic finish in top 8.

20:41 CET - Kas came out of the gate with something up his sleeve for Naama. The game opened fairly normal but Kas had early pressure in mind. With a mix of Marines and Mauraders the game was over for Naama as Kas crushed his early game forces with ease. It's a tough loss for the Fnatic boys but the tournament itself was well fought. Zanster and Pink showed a lot of promise for the future and the team looked to play a lot better individually.

20:30 CET - We used our wild card to revive Harstem to attempt to knock off Kas on Antiga Shipyard. The plan didn't go so well. Harstem went for a quick Warp Prism drop into the main base of Kas to catch his units on the outside and kill the inner base of Kas. Harstem did as much damage as he could but the micro and positioning of Kas was superb in game 4. It's clear that Kas is on his game tonight as he has managed to take out 2 of our players and win 3 games in a row. The next player for Fnatic has the tournament riding on their shoulders. The next match is a must win for the boys and it's coming up right now!

20:12 CET - Zanster was the next player to step out for Fnatic and he got off to a great start! He stayed calm against Kas and defended the initial Banshee pressure fairly well. Once he got up to three bases he began pumping out units while keeping his economy solid. He went for an old school Mutalisk, Zergling, Baneling composition which seemed to give him the upper hand against the spread out army of Kas. The mobility of his army gave Zanster the ability to pick and choose any fight he wanted. However as time went on the army of Kas grew resistant to the units of Zanster and he soon became a problem. The strong bio/mech composition allowed Kas to freely expand without fear of many counter attacks, at least ones he couldn't handle with the forces he left behind. Kas began to move out in chunks which smothered Zanster and forced him out of his comfort zone and into taking fights he didn't want to fight. This began to slide the lead into Kas's hands and he didn't let go. Empire now lead with a cool 2 games to 1 in the series. The fourth map will be played on Antiga Shipyard and we will have Harstem coming back to life for the team to face off against Kas once again.

19:45 CET - Game two got off to a quick start with Harstem taking on Kas. Cloud Kingdom is a fairly easy map to defend on so Harstem opted to open extremely greedy with a quick third base with little to no unit support. Luckily Kas didn't attack with his early bio or the game might have ended a lot quicker than it did. Kas was extremely passive in the early/mid game allowing both sides to sit back and Macro. Harstem was allowed to tech away freely to what ever he choose to do and Kas was able to sit back and respond. Both players worked their way out towards the middle of the map constantly keeping checks on each others army and waiting to get the perfect engagement. Despite both players trading rather well it was Harstem who slipped up and tried to attack into Kas who was at the top of the ramp. The high ground advantage gave Kas a couple of extra volleys which was the deciding factor in the game as he then went on to steam roll Harstem's army.The score is currently 1:1, Kas will stay on for game 3 for Empire.

19:25 CET - Harstem came out strong and prepared for anything and everything Happy could throw at him. Both players went into the mid game without much trouble enabling them to get the upgrades and army composition of their choice. Once each player was maxed it slowly became a battle of positioning which Harstem had the upper hand in each and every time. The army of Happy was slowly killed off and base after base was being taken out. Harstem sat on 4 bases and continued to increase his army and play smart which lead to a victory in game 1. Fnatic take the lead 1:0 with game number 2 coming up right away!

19:05 CET - Up first we have Harstem taking on Happy on Ohana. Both players are very confident in their respective match ups and it's bound to be an insanely high level match.

19:00 CET - Tonight the boys go head to head against Team Empire for a spot in the Semi-Finals of the Cascade Team League. A best of 7 series will decide who goes on and who goes out. Tune in as the boys attempt to find their stride and progress deeper into this event!

Fnatic vs Empire

Harstem

1

Versus

(Ohana)

Happy

0

Harstem

0

Versus

(Cloud Kingdom)

Kas

1

Zanster

0

Versus

(Bel'Shir Vestige)

Kas

1

Harstem

0

Versus

(Antiga Shipyard)

Kas

1

Naama

0

Versus

(Ohana)

Kas

1

GROUP A

#1

Empire

218-3+6

#2

W Wolves

228-4+6

#3

Alien Invasion

127-12+3

#4

eSuba

024-4+0

Group stage will be BO7

GROUP B

#1

Millenium

3012-1+9

#2

Fnatic

2 19-9+6

#3

Property

128-9+3

#4

3D!Clan

043-12+0

Group stage will be BO7

GROUP C

#1

Dignitas

308-1+6

#2

NewRoSoft

218-6+6

#3

GoSuStyle

127-11+3

#4

RoX.KiS

035-12+0

Group stage will be BO7

GROUP D

#1

FXO.ru

208-1+6

#2

aAa

219-9+6

#3

Cascade

126-10+3

#4

Derailed

035-12+0

Group stage will be BO7

Hey Harstem, you took some clutch wins today for the team in the Cascade League, what are your thoughts about todays game?

Naama started for us and got us a nice 1-0 lead after beating snuffe on bel shir vestige. Naama never was in trouble in that game and secured the win with a 2 base tank-marine push.

His second opponent was Runa, we knew before hand that Runa is the best player on Team PrOperty so if we could dismantle him we would be in good shape. It didn't go as we had hoped, naama lost after failing to kill Runa with his 2 base Banshee-tank-marine composition. Naama looked very strong all game long, but missmicroed his marines in the final engagement.

The 3rd game was one of our new recruits Pink, we all know PvP can be a bit dicey and that was proven by this game. Pink went for a 2 gate robo expand and faced a colossus all in. A colossus all-in is extremely hard to stop when opening with an expand build, Pink fought hard but failed to stop the timing attack from runa, putting PrOperty in a 2-1 lead.

As our third player we put our hopes on Zanster. The game on whirlwind started in a normal fashion, Zanster went for quick 3 base while Runa opted to go for phoenix play. For a long time it looked like there was gonna come an all-in from Runa, but at the 11 minute mark he expanded to a 3rd base and started gearing up for a big pre-broodlord timing. He hit and he hit hard. Zanster was unable to stop Runa and this put PrOperty in a 3-1 lead.

RunA was on a tear, taking down 3 of our players before you joined the fray. You said it would be tough, what did you think about your game versus him?

Not feeling very comfortable in WoL PvP anymore I was a bit scared that I would lose as well. I decided to play it safe by going 3 gate pressure into robo. I was able to deny Runa´s greedy expo and the blink all in that he followed up with. I was very satisfied with not camping his ramp for too long, because then a blink down would have killed me, overall a pretty solid game from my side.

We got to see Property using their joker card as they revived Snuffe, what were your thoughts on that move?

I got extremely happy, I was scared of playing another PvP as it involves a bit more luck. I have very good builds in PvZ so I am not scared in that match-up at all if I am playing against players that I consider worse as myself. I went for a 4-gate pressure into immortal all-in which he failed to hold.

The final game, saw no funny business from either player, but instead a straight up macro game. Were you feeling more confident in your macro today?

The final game I had to play was versus Bobson. My PvT has always been pretty good so I wasn’t scared at all. I thought of myself as the better player and I decided that I wanted to go for the longer macro game, because the longer the game goes the easier it is to show that you are better or worse than your opponent. In this case I came out ahead in a ~20 minute game on Entombed valley. We both took a quick 3 bases, when I had 3-3 I figured it was time to force an engagement so we fought and I came out ahead.

You came in with clutch wins again after the first clanwar where you also took 3 wins. Is there some special preparation going behind these games?

I actually haven’t been practicing a lot of Wings of Liberty. My complete focus is on Heart of the Swarm, because I am trying to get a bit of a head start on the people that are still playing WoL. In the last 1.5 months I played around 5 games of dedicated practice on Wings of Liberty, so I have no idea why I am doing well in the clan wars.

Fnatic vs 3D!Clan

Pink

0

Versus

(ESV Cloud Kingdom)

Roll

1

Zanster

1

Versus

(GSL Antiga Shipyard)

Roll

0

Zanster

0

Versus

(GSL Entombed Valley)

IAtSky

1

Harstem

1

Versus

(Ohana)

IAtSky

0

Harstem

1

Versus

(ESV Cloud Kingdom)

Noname

0

Harstem

1

Versus

(GSL Whirlwind)

VegaAffect

0

Fnatic vs Millenium

Zanster

1

Versus

(Whirlwind)

Feast

0

Zanster

0

Versus

(Cloud Kingdom)

ForGG

1

Naama

0

Versus

(Ohana)

ForGG

1

Harstem

0

Versus

(Entombed Valley)

ForGG

1

NightEnD

0

Versus

(Akilon Flats)

ForGG

1

Fnatic vs Team-prOperty

Naama

1

Versus

(Bel'Shir Vestige)

Snuffe

0

Naama

0

Versus

(Cloud Kingdom)

RunA

1

Pink

0

Versus

(Ohanna)

RunA

1

Zanster

0

Versus

(Whirlwind)

RunA

1

Harstem

1

Versus

(Akilon Flats)

RunA

0

Harstem

1

Versus

(CruX Abyssal City)

Snuffe (joker)

0

Harstem

1

Versus

(TBD)

Bobson

0

Overview

The Cascade Team League brings together 16 teams from around Europe. Some up-and-coming teams will look to breakthrough and make their mark on the StarCraft II scene and others will look to defend their notoriety. The players will be playing on Wings of Liberty for the duration of the tournament.

Fnatic will introduce two new academy players tonight along side the current roster of Harstem, NightEnD and Naama. The boys are looking to advance to the next stage and to do that they must surpass three top teams in: Millenium, Team Property and 3D!Clan.

Format

In the group stage, each team will play each other once in a best-of-7 match, you will get 3 points for a win and 0 for a loss. At the end of the Group Stage if two teams equal each other's points, it will go to head on head score. The top two teams will advance out of the group stage into the playoff stage.